At Night I Fly

Sometimes gliding during the day looking out of my window theater, a narrow slit at the back of a cell, three inches wide and three feet long, I saw what the red-tail hawk. I battled the demons blocking and kicking him and screaming. I cherished the buzzards, turkeys, and deer, wild dog coyote, the snakes, and mocked doves. I see spiders sparring in the window seals. Sometimes I see my past in the window’s theater.

Even after four decades in prison, not one day goes by without me hating myself for the life I’d took. Sometimes I strain my big toe kicking the walls and my dreams. Why, was I chosen to kill and not be killed?

I get up from my bunk, broken with remorse and sorrow, and I wonder when is enough enough. Here where I must live every moment and breath, and every breath in every moment. Here in my window theater at night, I dream of ruby painted toes. Isn’t it enough you keep me away from people I could surely help? From clean water, nutritious food. Isn’t it enough you keep me away from family and friends, so long, most have gone or passed on? You keep me away from a woman’s breast, touch, scent, and voice. Isn’t it enough you keep me away from resting my head in her lap to sleep or weep? Whose sins am I paying for now after decades?

I look at my window theater and I see no moon tonight. Look at the first picture of me incarcerated. Look at me today. You don’t see the change? Close your eyes, and you’ll see inside change as well. How can a man stay sane and not have a woman in his life? Is like hell when you see a woman and cannot say hello to her, as a man, to a woman. Isn’t it enough you keep me away from accomplishing my goals?

Isn’t it enough you keep me away from parks, valleys, mountains, rivers, trees, and seas? Trees, mountains, and dreams that I can see from the barred window theater. Isn’t it enough?

(Sound of a cell door closing.) These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.